


By Proxy

by J (j_writes)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:29:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Charles appears into their lives after the beach, Emma's doing it as an object lesson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Proxy

**Author's Note:**

> written for a prompt on 1stclass_kink

The first time Charles appears into their lives after the beach, Emma's doing it as an object lesson, right up until the moment Erik turns around, sees the projection, and goes deathly pale.

"Charles," he says in an almost-gasp so filled with hope that Emma drops the illusion immediately, and he finds himself staring at a blank wall.

"You see?" she says after a long pause where Erik's fingers twitch at his side like he wants to reach out to touch the air in front of him, "That's how easy it would be, for someone to get the best of you. If you're not going to wear your helmet all the time, you're going to have to learn to protect yourself."

"That's what I have you around for," he says absently, but his eyes never leave that spot on the wall.  
______________

She wakes to torment, and lies awake trying to breathe for an embarrassingly long time before she realizes that the dream isn't her own at all. It's a struggle to pull herself from bed, make her way down the hallway, and the closer she gets to Erik's door, the more she wants to curl up in a miserable ball there against the terrible wallpaper and cry until she has no more tears left.

 _Pity diamonds have no tears in the first place_ , she thinks, and holds onto the frame of his door for a moment to calm herself, keep herself on her feet.

The door handle is rattling before she even touches it, and as she does, it caves into itself under her fingers. The door swings open, and Erik is sprawled out on the bed, twitching in his sleep, sheets tangled around him. She says his name, once, quietly, and his eyes fly open, but he's not awake, not really, just searching, reaching out, and when she sees what he's reaching for, she lets him find it, his fingers touching soft brown hair, sliding down over a jaw not her own, his palm drifting to her shoulder and holding to it tightly.

She speaks his name again in a voice that she remembers only vaguely, but that is etched permanently into his mind. She sits there beside him until he falls back into a sleep filled with only the vaguest hints of dreams.

The next morning, he makes her coffee, and thinks _thank you_ without saying it.  
______________

He's pacing, not angry but agitated, and each pass he takes across the room makes Emma more and more frustrated.

"Can you please stand _still_?" she finally asks him.

"I can't think like this," he snaps at her.

"What, here?" she asks, waving a hand at the room. "Change your scenery, then."

"No, like _this_." He gestures between them, as if expecting that's going to explain everything.

"You mean with me?" she asks coldly. She reaches toward him and flinches when she realizes that's exactly what he means. "I see," she says. "Then here, I'll leave you to conduct your brilliant thoughts alone."

She leaves the room and loses even the satisfaction of slamming the door behind her when he catches the hinges and shuts it gently, then slams the lock into place. She glares at the outside of it for a few moments, then gradually, she begins to smile.

 _Here_ , she thinks at him, _does this help you at all?_ She stays connected just long enough to feel the jolt of shock that goes through him as she illusions Charles into the room, then adds, _You probably shouldn't have left your helmet out here with me_.

She sits on the other side of the door and reads a magazine, flipping the pages idly as, inside the room, Erik gradually decides to stop ignoring the projection, and starts to talk.  
______________

"Rough night?" she asks, leaning against the doorframe.

"You have no idea," Erik tells her from where his forehead is pressed against his desk.

 _I could_ , she thinks at him, but she doesn't pry, just takes another step into the room. "Want me to do a little – " she wiggles her fingers and raises an eyebrow at him, "magic?"

He flinches without looking up. "It's not like that," he says. He lifts his head, then, and frowns. "And you know I don't like you to refer to your abilities as magic."

"I know," she says as sweetly as possible, then nods to the couch, where a projection of Charles is sitting, ice cubes rattling in the glass he's tilting in his hand. "I'll leave you two alone."

She can feel Erik's annoyance as she turns to the door. "It just helps me think," he says, and the defensiveness hits her in waves.

"Erik." She turns and smiles almost genuinely. "I know."

She leaves him there, contemplating his glass and the nonexistent man across from him.  
______________

"Don't you _ever_ \- " the lamp in the corner of the room flips itself over, shattering into a million pieces – "have that _thing_ try to play chess with me again."

She never does.  
______________

She's lost track of how many nights she's spent like this – half her attention on the work she has at hand, the other half on keeping up an illusion in Erik's room, one that he talks to and plans with in ways he'll never allow himself to do with her face to face. She listens in on all of it, halfheartedly most of the time, with interest at others.

She's on her way back to her room with a glass of water when she feels it the first time, and the glass slips from her hand, smashing in glittering pieces down the staircase. A press of a hand against an imaginary cheek, the breathless whisper of a name with more feeling packed into it than Erik shows during any given month of his life.

She lets the illusion shatter, and he pulls back so abruptly she can feel a twinge in his neck.

"Charles – " he says aloud, questioning, almost pitiful, and then grimaces. " _Emma_."

 _Erik_ , she thinks at him. _Enough_.

 _No_ , he tells her, _it's not._

"No," she calls up the stairs, "and it's never going to be."

He doesn't reply, and she can feel the moment when he puts his helmet back on.


End file.
